


It's All In Me

by forbala



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, F/M, Genderfluid Character, M/M, Multi, OT4, Sorry Not Sorry, Tony Stark Is Not Helping, genderfluid!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forbala/pseuds/forbala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky discovers his gender is a little more complex than he once thought.</p><p>*Not Tony Stark friendly*</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All In Me

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by a drawing on tumblr (punkbuckies /post/107269831496), developed through conversation with shakesqueered, and beta'd by bironan. Thanks so much to my lovely friends for helping make this story a reality! It means a lot to me as a genderfluid individual myself. I drew a lot from my own experiences so this may not reflect other people's experiences as genderfluid. Just me and my understanding of Bucky Barnes.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Sam said, sitting with Natasha opposite Steve and Bucky. “Things have changed a lot since you were young. Homosexuals have come a long way and so have a lot of other marginalized groups.”

“It’s mostly called the LGBTQ community now,” Natasha said. “That stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. Lesbians are female homosexuals and gays are male homosexuals, just FYI. Bisexual—attracted to two or more genders. Transgender—identifying as a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth. Queer—and umbrella term for all of that and more. Make sense so far?”

Steve nodded and so did Bucky. “We knew some of that,” Steve said. Bucky nodded again.

“Great,” Sam said. “Obviously, we’re all queer here, or we wouldn’t be together.”

“And thank god for it,” Natasha added.

Sam went on. “There’s a lot more sexualities and genders than just that, though. There’s asexual and pansexual—”

“I’m pansexual,” Natasha interjected.

“There’s also romantic orientation. So someone can be bisexual and homoromantic.”

“Right. And there’s about a million gender identities. There’s agender, bigender, genderfluid, and so on. Those are all considered genderqueer or non-binary genders.”

They went on and on, and some of it was similar or familiar to what Steve and Bucky had known—they’d grown up near Greenwich Village, after all, and Steve went to art school. It wasn’t like they’d never been around queers—queer people, Natasha corrected; queer is not a noun.But there were new things too. Bucky, for his part, had never heard of most of the sexualities Sam listed, but he nodded along and asked questions when he didn’t know one. Steve had known several transgender girls back in art school, had drawn them sometimes, and Bucky had known more than a few fags—gay men, he mentally corrected himself—in the war. The military didn’t like it, but they were trying to win a war; they didn’t have time to try every instance of mutual assistance. Most of the time it had been overlooked. And above all, Steve and Bucky had always had something they couldn’t quite describe, couldn’t ever talk about. They had fooled around when they were young, gotten more serious as they got older. But that was never meant to be a permanent arrangement.

Now, after the war and after Steve was revived, after Bucky had been freed from Hydra, they clung to each other more than ever.

“What’s agender?” Steve asked.

“It’s the absence of gender,” Tasha explained. “Not man or woman or anything else.”

“Huh,” Bucky said, processing that. He’d never thought of anyone being genderless.

“So then bigender would be…?” Steve trailed off.

Sam finished for him. “Experiencing two genders, sometimes simultaneously.”

They talked a little longer, then made lunch and settled in to play Mario Party for a while.

Later that night, however, while the others were sleeping in the oversized bed they shared, Bucky went to the computer and looked up more about those different genders.

He found hundreds of websites—Trevor Project and GLAAD and TSER and more. He also did a search on tumblr, a website that Clint was particularly fond of, and found just as many blogs and resources there. The amount of information was overwhelming.

After an hour or so of searching, he found one identity called genderfluid and something seemed to fall into place for him at reading the definition: “a changing or ‘fluid’ gender identity.” He couldn’t quite figure out how he felt about that, so instead of thinking about it, he went to bed, curled up between Steve and Tasha.

Over the next several days, he had Natasha create a tumblr blog for him and he began to follow all the LGBTQ blogs he could find, reading hundreds of pages about sexual and romantic orientation, and about gender in particular. Genderfluid continued to crop up on these pages, and each time he read about it, he felt something stir in his chest. It made him acutely uncomfortable, yet he yearned for that feeling, sought it out.

Finally, over a week after Sam and Tasha had first mentioned it, Bucky decided he should do an experiment.

While the others were out on a walk in Central Park, he stayed home, claiming a headache. He went into Natasha’s closet and took out one of her loose-fit sweaters, a short skirt, and a pair of heels. He took it all to the bathroom and changed into it, looked at himself in the mirror.  
He looked…nice. With his hair down, still long from his time as the Winter Soldier, he actually looked pretty, in Natasha’s too-tight skirt and purple sweater. His feet felt cramped in the heels, distorted by the arch, but he found he kind of liked it, liked the way it made his calves look more muscular and his legs look longer.

Make-up. He needed make-up.

He went into Natasha’s vanity and dug around until he saw something he recognized. He couldn’t figure out which brush did what, but he grabbed a bigger one and dusted blush onto his cheekbones. Found lipstick and put it on like he’d seen girlfriends do so many times.  
When he looked in the mirror again, he found he liked it even more. He looked almost like a real dame. He turned around and around, looking at himself from every angle.

Yes. Yes, he liked it. He liked it a lot.

Did that mean he was a woman? Transgender, like those women Steve had drawn all those years ago?

No, that didn’t feel quite right. He liked this look, liked wearing Natasha’s skirt, but he liked being a man too. He liked holding Steve or Sam tight in his strong arms, liked his masculine physique, liked strolling around in loose jeans and holding onto Natasha’s hand as they walked down the street.

Suddenly, that word came unbidden to his mind. Genderfluid. Changing or fluid gender. Maybe that’s what he was. After all, some days he wanted to be strong and masculine, but he had certainly had days where he had looked at dames with envy at their soft prettiness.

Genderfluid.

He had to take to the internet.

-

He spent the rest of the afternoon online, looking at a genderfluid blog on tumblr, reading through the many messages from confused teens and wishing he weren’t as confused as they. Eventually, he must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, he heard the door open, Steve’s low voice telling Natasha some joke or other.

Bucky panicked. He was still wearing Tasha’s clothes and make-up. He ran into the bathroom before they could see him, scrubbed at his face with soap and water, watching the rouge drain into the sink basin. He kicked off the high heels and yanked the skirt down his legs, kicking it into a corner too. But that left him in his underwear and a purple sweater, face wet and lipstick smudged, when Sam walked into the bathroom.

They both froze. Bucky felt fearful tears pricking at his eyes as Sam looked at him, looked behind him at the heels and skirt on the floor.

After a long, tense moment, Sam said, “You okay, Bucky?”

Bucky didn’t respond.

“Natasha’s got pretty clothes, huh?”

Bucky nodded minutely.

“If you were trying them on, that’d be understandable.”

Bucky started to shake and he felt tears slide down his cheeks.

“No, no, don’t cry, Bucky. It’s okay. You can do whatever you want, I still love you. Steve and Natasha still love you too. It’s okay,” he said pulling Bucky into his arms and rubbing his back soothingly.

Bucky started crying in earnest, heaving great sobs against Sam’s shoulder. Steve and Natasha came running at the noise, stood frozen in the doorway, looked at Sam questioningly. Sam shrugged, as clueless as they were. Confused, they closed in on Bucky and held him as he cried, ashamed at being caught, ashamed at even for a moment doubting his masculinity.

It took a long time, but he did stop crying eventually. Natasha led him to the bed and laid him down, kissed his forehead and lay down beside him.

Steve and Sam lay down on the other side of him as Natasha said, “You wanna tell us what that was about, Bucky? You okay?”

Bucky turned over to face her, looked at her for a long moment before mumbling, barely audible, “I was tryin’ on your clothes.”

Natasha nodded. “Okay. You can wear my clothes whenever you want.”

Bucky ducked his head, curled in on himself. He felt hands on his back, soothing, one brushing through his hair.

“Buck,” Steve said. “Did you like wearing Nat’s clothes?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you want us to get you some clothes of your own, clothes like Natasha’s?”

He thought for a moment. Bucky felt warm hands all over him, holding him, stroking him, supporting him. He found he felt quite safe, scared as he was. They were all here with him, trying to give him what they thought he wanted. At last, he said, “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Sam spoke next. “Okay. We’ll go shopping tomorrow then.”

And that was the end of it.

They took him to the bathroom and ran him a warm bath, cleaned the leftover make-up from his face, then wrapped him up in bed and curled all around him, as if guarding him while he slept.

-

Bucky awoke the next day to sunlight streaming in from the windows and birds chirping outside. He had slept late, exhausted from fear and crying. He was alone in bed, heard voices from the rest of their apartment in Avengers Tower. He stretched languidly, got out of bed and got dressed in jeans and a loose t-shirt, went into the kitchen to see Natasha, Steve, and Sam at the table, eating pancakes.

“Morning,” he mumbled, sitting down amongst them and stealing Steve’s plate.

They chorused greetings while Sam filled a new plate tall with pancakes and handed it to Steve, letting Bucky keep his stolen food. Natasha said, “Do you want to go shopping today?”

Bucky thought for a moment. He really didn’t know what his gender was, didn’t know what he wanted. But shopping sounded nice. He could get a few skirts and women’s blouses, maybe a pair of high heels. He could have clothes of his own to wear whenever he liked. Maybe he could even get some lacy underwear. He thought he’d like to wear lacy underwear.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a big bite of pancakes and keeping his head down.

“Great,” Steve said, sliding a hand onto his thigh.

They made their way to the mall in short order, went to H&M first. Natasha picked out skirts and dresses for Bucky, showing them to him and handing the ones he liked to Steve to hold, putting the rejects back on the rack without comment. At first, Bucky barely responded, eyes darting around nervously. But as he realized no one seemed to be paying their group any mind, he grew more confident—which is to say, he nodded to a coral-colored A-line dress, shook his head “no” to a green miniskirt, nodded to a white ruffled blouse, pulled a sickened face at a pink peplum top. When they had a stack of clothes, Natasha led the way to the fitting rooms and went in with Bucky, helping him into the dresses with zippers, pairing the skirts and tops, handing him sweaters to put over the dresses.

“Damn, Bucky, you look good in anything,” she said, halfway through, taking a dress from him and passing over a skirt and shirt for him to try on next.

He didn’t walk out and model for Sam and Steve. He didn’t want to be seen by the sales associates or by other shoppers. He could show them his new clothes back at Avengers Tower, if they wanted to see, but he would not subject himself to the looks of anyone else.

They spent an obscene amount of money, and they’d only just started. Bucky and Steve commiserated about the high cost of clothes while they trudged across the mall to the GAP, and Natasha and Sam only laughed at them and called them old and curmudgeonly.

At the GAP, they got a pair of women’s trousers and another few dresses and a pair of sweaters. Then they went to Victoria’s Secret, bought him underwear with lace and little bows, bought him gray sweatpants with PINK printed on the rear end and a blue hooded sweatshirt that revealed his abdomen. They went to DSW and found him a few pairs of shoes—pumps and heeled sneakers and ballet flats, and even a pair of neon pink tennis shoes. They went to Sephora last, sat him down in a chair and had a sales woman paint him up. They bought him eyeshadow, lip gloss and lipstick, blush, mascara, a dozen brushes he didn’t know how to use, and some sort of metal crimper that Natasha claimed was for curling eyelashes but that Bucky eyed nervously.

Finally, they left the mall and went home. Bucky felt nauseated about how much money they’d spent. He’d been poor his whole life, had always had to budget and save and go without. Spending any money made him uncomfortable. Spending hundreds of dollars on clothes and shoes and make-up made him feel faint. But Natasha shushed him whenever he complained, reassured him that they were all making enough money now that they could afford to splurge once in a while. Bucky just swallowed down his discomfort and reached for Sam’s hand and Steve’s.

-

Days later, Bucky decided he wanted to wear his new clothes out.

He picked out a short, flowy black skirt and a light blue button-up blouse, pulled on a pair of black knee-high socks and a pair of heavy boots. He went out into the living room, asked Natasha to do something to his hair, he didn’t care what, just something feminine.

She smiled and agreed.

When he looked in the mirror at the finished product, he found he was pretty pleased with himself. He felt pretty and confident and special. Natasha had pulled his hair back into a complicated sort of high ponytail, held with a heavy black clip. He turned his head this way and that, examined it, smiling.

“Thanks, Tasha.”

“You’re welcome, Bucky,” she said, stroking his shoulder fondly.

-

“I think I want to use they pronouns,” he announced one night, out of the blue as they ate dinner.

“They?” Steve asked. “Isn’t they plural?”

“Not according to all these websites I’ve been looking at,” Bucky said.

Sam said, “No, Bucky’s right. They can be used as a singular gender neutral pronoun. It’s been used that way since the Middle Ages. It’s a perfectly legitimate pronoun.”

“Okay,” said Steve. “They.”

Natasha nodded. “You still want to go by Bucky?”

“Yeah. Just Bucky. Not James.”

“Okay,” she said, and took another bite as if they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather.

Bucky smiled to themself and thought about how lucky they were.

-

“Fuck. How am I going to tell the others?” they asked Steve, a few weeks later.

“We could help you.”

“You’d do that?”

“Hell yeah. Anything you need, Buck. We’re here for you.”

-

The very next day, Sam stood in the living room of Tony’s quarters in Avengers Tower, a projector behind him showing a Prezi presentation. All the Avengers were gathered; Natasha, Steve, and Bucky sat up front with Sam, while the others sat grouped across the room, waiting for they knew not what.

“Okay, we’re here today to discuss gender. What’s gender?” Sam asked. He hit the next button on the laptop and the Prezi changed to show a definition: GENDER. A personal, performative identity that shapes how we interact with the world around us.

“You probably only know of two genders—man and woman—but there’s actually infinitely more than that. Agender,” a definition showed up on screen; “bigender,” another definition; “demigender,” two more definitions, one for demigirl and another for demiboy; “and many, many more.

“The man/woman dichotomy is called the gender binary. This is a false dichotomy based on external genitalia observed at a person’s birth. Gender is actually a spectrum with as many possibilities as there are individuals on Earth.”

“But—” Tony interjected. Sam held up his hand and Tony waited impatiently.

“You’re probably familiar with the term transgender. A binary transgender person is one who was assigned male at birth but is actually a woman, or the other way around. A non-binary transgender person is one who has a gender outside the man/woman binary.

“Now let’s talk about genderfluid. Genderfluid is a term used to describe someone who has a gender identity that changes every day, or every hour, or every minute. A genderfluid person can present as feminine or masculine or androgynous or as a mixture of feminine and masculine traits. Sometimes they might pick one side of the spectrum or another. What’s important is that they are able to identify with multiple genders and present themselves as such.”

Sam sat down, then, and Steve and Bucky stood up.

Steve spoke first. “Bucky has been exploring gender over the last few weeks. Bucky has realized that they are genderfluid.”

“I want to be called Bucky and use they/them/their pronouns,” Bucky said, just loudly enough to be heard.

“You’re going to respect Bucky and their choices and their gender.”

“Any questions?” Bucky asked, again barely audible, shy and nervous.

Tony stood. Of course it was Tony. “You can’t call yourself they. They is plural.”

“Yes, they can,” said Sam calmly. “They has been in use as a singular gender neutral pronoun since the Middle Ages. Next?”

“There’s only two sexes, you have to—”

“I’m gonna stop you there,” Pepper said. “There’s more than two sexes. There’s male, female, and a whole host of other sexes grouped together as intersex.”

“Hermaphrodites, you mean,” Tony rebuked.

“Nope,” Steve said. “Absolutely not. That’s a slur. Never say it again. Also, biological sex is not the same thing as gender. And Bucky doesn’t have to choose anything unless they want to. They can identify any way they want and it will be valid.”

“Okay, then what—?” Tony started again, but he was cut off by Rhodey.

“Are you still bisexual, or is your orientation different now?”

“I’m still bi,” Bucky said. Rhodey nodded and leaned back, apparently mollified.

Thor looked confused.

“Thor? How’re you doing?” Sam asked.

“I am confused--of course there are more than two genders. Why would anyone think otherwise?”

“I like this one,” Bucky muttered with a half-smile.

Nick Fury stood and Maria Hill stood with him. Nick said, “Listen, you can present and dress however you like. I’m happy for you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” And he turned and left. Maria sat back down with a smile and a thumbs up.

“I support you,” she said.

Bruce spoke up, then. “I’m so sorry. I know I’m going to mess up your pronouns and misgender you for a while and I’m really sorry. I’ll correct myself and if I don’t, correct me. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry in advance. I’ll do my best to make you comfortable.”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile at that. They were growing to like Bruce an awful lot.

“Okay, I’m still concerned about this whole three sexes thing,” Tony said.

Natasha stood and fixed Tony with a look, one that said he’d better keep quiet if he wanted to keep his larynx.

He gulped and sat back down. “Y’know what, sounds great, Buck. Good for you.”

Natasha sat again and crossed her legs. Her partners smiled fondly.

“How about it, Clint?” Natasha asked, speaking for the first time.

“I think it’s great. How’d you know you’re non-binary? What if I’m non-binary?” he said, leaning forward in interest.

“Well, uh,” Bucky started. “I guess it was when Tasha and Sam explained to me an’ Steve about some of the steps queer people have taken. They talked some about gender and I got interested and started researching online. I read a lot and I just felt like genderfluid fit me, somehow. It felt right.”

Clint nodded interestedly.

“I can give you some websites, if you want.”

“Yes. That’d be great. Could you? Thank you.”

Natasha smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Edit: please don't comment that you don't like my characterization of Tony. This is based on how I read MCU Tony and my real life experience with genius science boy types, namely that they're ignorant and occasionally belligerent in these areas, aka gender and sexuality. While Tony may very well be bisexual, that doesn't necessarily make him open to or aware of gender theory. Not saying he's a bigot, just uninformed and narcissistic.


End file.
